Sunshine and answers to questions

1. What’s the best thing you’ve purchased or been given in the past six months?

The services of my wedding planner

We just replaced the tires on our car. That’s pretty cool in the way that we no longer have to refill the tires with air every 2 weeks. I guess.

2. What’s your favorite snack? (No one gets to say fruit.)

I like crunchy salty things. I also like dark-chocolate covered edamame and pretzels. Cheez-Its go well with red wine.

But what if fruit is my favorite snack? Bananas are quite possibly the world’s most perfect fruit. Also I love apples and dried dragonfruit (and in season, what’s more wonderful than cherries?). Other than that, chocolate and nuts.

3. What form of exercise do you hate the most. (“All” is a perfectly acceptable answer.)

Almost ALL of it, most ESPECIALLY if it’s outside. Yuck.

Tie between running and tennis. Both of these because I tend to pass out in the heat (really, just standing in a tennis court outside is gawd awful) and also running makes my lungs burn and my throat dry out and I want to die.

4. If you could afford/manage to live anywhere, where would it be?

Here in the same area where I already live, but with a lot more money so we could afford to buy a cool place in a cool location.

Paaaaridise. Also with a lot more money. :)

5. What’s the geekiest hobby or pastime you have?

There are sooooo many answers to this. Right now I’d say Magic: the Gathering (a collectible card game). Specifically, I only really understand (and play) a version called Commander or EDH (which I just found out stands for Elder Dragons with Highlander rules [There Can Be Only One of each card in your deck]).*

My first deck was built for me by my partner. It’s easy to play but doesn’t win a lot (mono white). All you do is put equipment on creatures and then attack. Then I built another deck (green/white) with lots of help from 2 people, which is quite a winning deck if I pilot it right. It’s a fast mana-ramp to awesome fatties. Then I recently built a deck all by myself, which I am still trying to figure out how to tweak right. Mono blue flying wizards. I hate it when people take control of my stuff and then beat me with it (a danger with the green/white deck because it has huge creatures). I don’t have the brainpower for more than 2 colors in a deck yet, nor do I have the working memory to deal with a deck with lots and lots of synthesis. My partner tends to play this way but he has 20 years of experience on me; I’m doing well for a beginner! If you have read this far without going into a coma then I’m pretty surprised. Also I’m starting to get interested in card art; I like the Ravnica lands and some stuff by Veronique Meignaud, who hasn’t done a lot of art.

*Another form, drafting, is SUPER hard. I’ve tried it but I have enough trouble when I know what’s in my deck beforehand!

When my free time isn’t taken up with kids, anime is my geekiest hobby. When my freetime is taken up with kids um… my only two hobbies are blogging and reading novels. Which do you think is geekier?

Feel free to leave your answers in the comments, or comment on our answers, whichever.

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30 Responses to “Sunshine and answers to questions”

Loot: hard to say. I was gonna say I’m really enjoying Dengue Fever’s album The Deepest Lake but then I thought of the new cell number I got when I started looking to change jobs. My old number belonged to my terrible boss because I started there fourteen years ago and it was the only cell I had ever had, but I couldn’t really use it to job-hunt, so…not sure if that counts as a thing.

Noms: fruit juice? Not supposed to drink it because diabetes but what the hey. Cranberry with lime or maybe a good tamarindo agua. Mmmm. Chocolate mousse.

Exercise: pilates or anything else that requires me to lie on my stomach on the floor. Not being able to breathe seems unhealthy to me somehow.

Location: I already live in the SF bay area but wouldn’t mind living in a less crowded area of it. Or somewhere on the northern California coast where I can hear the ocean.

Hobby: I read SF and collect music but geekiest is probably programming. My next project is generating a sound file from scratch so I can make weird noises/music.

1. ipad. travel is so much better with the kids.
2. cheese puffs. specifically aged white cheddar pirate’s bootie. 2nd runner up: cheez its. 3rd runner up—anything crunchy/salty/spicy
3. spinning/treadmill…anything on a machine that you COULD do outside & actually get somewhere/see something.
4. southern california, but I’d need a LOT more money. near the beach would be nice.
5. reading/blogging (which are my ONLY hobbies) and not THAT geeky, maybe?

Best thing bought in past 6 months: a set of 100% linen sheets. LOVE them! Best thing given: this is going to sound corny, but I’m going to say friendship. Most people have been very friendly and welcoming here in my new home.

Snack: Nuts and dark chocolate

Exercise: Any type of group classroom thing. I am such a slow kinesthetic learner that I can never keep up with the moves in fast-paced classes and get frustrated. Even in slower ones like yoga I tend to get frustrated, when I have trouble with poses that seem easy for everyone else. I prefer to do those things at home from a DVD or streaming service, TYVM.

Where to live: Well, I’m pretty close to my idea of paradise right now. If I could improve on it that would require me to leave a job that requires me to have some sort of easy access to a big city. I think I’d like to live a bit closer to the coast, too.

Geekiest hobby: Would knitting, gardening, or home preserving (canning, pickling, jam making, etc) be considered geeky? I’m frankly confused by what “geek” or “geeky” means these days since it seems so many groups claim to be “xxxx geeks.”

Very finely woven linen, after a few washings, is soft and drapey. Most garments are currently made of an inferior grade which tends to be slub-y and not particularly soft. Um, I’ve bought a lot of linen over the years….

Most linen these days is pre-washed enough to be less rough. They aren’t as soft as the softest cotton, but I love crisp sheets. And these will just get softer every time I wash and dry them. They feel amazing.

I was pretty good at fencing when I tried it, but maybe that was an exception.

1. A new pair of Birkenstocks. They are silver & not dorky & I’ve worn them everyday this summer.
2. Regular snack? Cheese & crackers. I like cheddar or Colby jack and organic wheat thins lately. Not a big smackers though.
3. I like running, biking, lifting weights. Things I’d hate? Competitive sports involving yelling coaches? Crossfit? Thankfully I will never have to do these things.
4. Well, if it’s with my DH, it’s where we are living now (with more $ for a bigger house in a nicer area). Me only, somewhere not so HOT with mountains nearby!! NorCal, Colorado, Washington, Idaho…
5. Reading blogs? Is that geeky? I also tend to enjoy self-help type books – maybe geeky too?

1. Re-doing the second bedroom! We painted it my favorite color back in July, bought a fancy sit/stand desk, and a good, ergonomic chair that fits me perfectly. I love it and it makes it so much easier to have personal space!
2. Yogurt, chocolate, and strawberries.
3. Biking! I just don’t find the seats comfortable in normal clothes and then what do you do really? Carry a backup set of clothes all the time?
4. Here or maybe in the big city near my hometown :)
5. I wrote some software to help manage my finances better!

1. Preprinted labels for daycare. Saves me from having to rewrite names every time they get washed off.
2. Pretzel-covered M&Ms are the leader this week.
3. Burpees. Because they’re awful and because they remind me of middle school.
4. Someplace in Colorado.
5. Making my website look nice. I do my own HTML and CSS for my real-name website (versus my blog for which I do zero coding).

So one of you might be my soul sister. I love anime and I LOVE MTG. Building a new deck is half the fun but you can actually buy pre-made decks on ebay which some people have pretty good success with. I have built a deck with each color and have other decks with themes. I have not done a 2-color deck but I think most people stick to one or two colors. I’ve only seen a three color deck once. Anyways, white is one of my favorite colors to play with. I like to go heavy with the life-link. For that same reason, I like black–life-link and deathtouch. For themed-decks, I have one with green where I try to get mana out quickly and try to get as many monsters as possible. I also have a green deck that is heavy on counters that I haven’t gotten to play yet. I’ve seen some goblin decks which are terrifying. The funny thing about MTG, I find that I love to play with different decks, even if I have one that seems to win more consistently. There was a great podcast about MTG, I think it was on planet money which you might want to check out. You may actually live near me, btw because magic is only popular in certain regions of the US but I know you don’t want to reveal too much about your location so I won’t press that.